As a family we have had our family history entertainingly chronicled by the late Benjamin M. Stilwell, Esq., in his Life and Times of Nicholas Stilwell.¹ In his work Mr. Stilwell incorporated, without discrimination, both fact and fiction, sometimes citing authorities insufficiently convincing. He stated therein that Nicholas Stillwell, the First, married Abigail, sister of Lord Hopton, a lady in waiting to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, whom he rescued under perilous circumstances.
       That the Hoptons were allied to the Stillwells was so strong a matter of belief with the Hon. Samuel Stillwell (born 1763, died 1848), that, had he been blest with a son he would have called him Ralph Hopton is very likely, but how, when or where such an alliance occurred has not been transmitted. Unfortunately, too, Lord Hopton had no sister Abigail, nor does history tell us the names of the maid and the cavalier who escaped with the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, so of necessity there falls to the ground the tale of an Abigail Hopton, wife of the first Nicholas Stillwell, and the naming of the English settlement on Deutil Bay, Hopton, which, should this name appear in any document, I venture to suggest, by reason of my large acquaintance with the phonetic spelling and orthoganal errors of that day, was Hopetown, awkwardly spelled Hopton. But of the very existence of this name a question may be raised, for, though E. B. O'Callaghan² says: 1639. George Homs and Thos. Hall built a house this year, at a place they called Hopton, near Deutel Bay, two miles above Curler's Hoeck, now corrupted to "Turtle Bay," yet I find the contract of September 7, 1639, and the patent for the same piece of land, November 15, 1639, and the deed for it of September 7, 1639, do not refer to the land as Deutil Bay as Hopton, which provokes the comment the Dr. O'Callaghan, if correct, must have had other information than that contained in the original records. Then again the question naturally arises why should Holmes and Hall, apparently no kin to the Hoptons, apply this name to the locality when the alleged relationship was between not themselves and Hopton, but between Stillwell and Hopton, and at a date six years before the arrival of Nicholas Stillwell in New Amsterdam.

       The statement that the wife of Nicholas Stillwell, the First, was a Dutch woman rests on too meager evidence to be entertained. Judge Nicholas Stillwell, a descendant through Nicholas Stillwell, the Second, and a resident of Gravesend, had a hazy tradition that either the first or the second Nicholas Stillwell brought from Leyden, Holland, "a Dutch wife and a couple of children"³ and from Benjamin M. Stilwell came the assertion that she was either a Van Dyke or a Van Dincklage, daughter of the New Amsterdam Schout Fiscal of that name. With him, Benjamin M. Stilwell, it was merely a belief that she was a member of one of these two families, based upon some remote association in his mind of these names, but of proof he had none.⁴
       That some of the Stillwells did marry Dutch women is probable, and that confusion concerning them arose is likely, when it is recalled that marriages between the Dutch and English residents of Gravesend were common and that the Dutch language was interchangeably used with English until a quarter century ago. I, myself, have spoken with several residents of that town who were equally familiar with both tongues.

       Of Ann, the wife of Nicholas Stillwell, the First, little is known. She was probably an English woman, for she subsequently became the wife of William Wilkins and of William Foster, both Englishmen, and nowhere among the Dutch records, wherein her name appears and where the opportunity has been ample, has her surname been given, as was common among the Dutch of that day. The earliest mention of her name that I have so far seen occurs in the Dutch Church Records of New Amsterdam, when 1647, Jan. 14, Anne, the wife of Nicholas Stillwell, was a sponsor, with Richard Cool, at the baptism of Anna, daughter of John Harten, in the Dutch Church, at New Amsterdam. She was a lady of good birth and breeding and was alluded to in contemporary records as Mistress Anne Stillwell, an appellation of restricted use and confined to those of good station.
       Ann Stillwell was the mother of many, if not all, of Nicholas Stillwell's children, and was presumably somewhat younger than her husband Nicholas Stillwell, and perhaps somewhat older than her last husband William Foster. Nicholas Stillwell may have married her in Old England, or perhaps in Virginia. She proved a capable, energetic woman, a loyal and untiring companion, and a mother whose wise councils and loving admonitions reared an admirable family.
       Ann Stillwell,¹ shortly following the death of her husband, removed from Staten Island to Gravesend. Here she had bought, June 21, 1672, while residing at Dover, from Jan Jansen Van Ryn (Rhyn) the house and lot, No. 18, with the meadow reserved, which the grantor originally had purchased from her husband Nicholas Stillwell. Gravesend Town Records. Upon this property she probably took her up residence in company with her children Mary and Jeremiah, and perhaps John. Capt. Nicholas Stillwell, her son, one of the most eminent men of the town, was her neighbor. Her interests therefore were equally divided between the Staten Islandand the Long Island settlements.
       Dec. 29, 1672, a few months following her arrival in Gravesend, and so close as to be the likely cause of her removal to that town, she married the local magistrate, William Wilkins.